


so baby drive slow ‘til we run out of road

by millepertuis



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 16:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millepertuis/pseuds/millepertuis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Cato is sixteen, there are twenty-four volunteers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so baby drive slow ‘til we run out of road

**Author's Note:**

> For jada_jasmine's prompt at [stainofmylove](http://stainofmylove.livejournal.com/180995.html?thread=4627715#t4627715)'s meme.  
> Title from Taylor Swift's song _Fearless_.

The year Cato turns ten, there are eighteen volunteers.

 

 

“Look.”

His father is pointing out a girl. She’s small, blonde. He hasn’t seen her at the Academy.

“When you win,” his father says, not _if_ , it’s always been _when_ , “you’ll marry her.”

He remembers thinking she was pretty. He remembers counting out the ways he could kill her while her father introduced her.

He doesn’t remember her name, but he was only eight and they only saw each other that one time.

 

 

“When did it start?”

“What?”

“This. Me. You. How did we become like this?”

He wants to tell her to shut up, wants to ignore her, but you never know when sponsors are watching, and the Capitol prefers monsters with layers.

“I don’t remember,” he utters, avoiding eye-contact, letting his voice waver on the last syllable.

When he closes his eyes, all he can see is blood.

(It’s only half an act.)

 

 

When Cato is sixteen, there are twenty-four volunteers.

His name is picked.

 

 

“What will you do, once you’ve won?” asks his little brother once.

“I’ll come home,” he replies, and leaves it at that.

 

 

Cato doesn’t feel bad about the kids he killed, not even for the younger one, the little boy who tried really hard not to cry but did anyway. Only one can survive, and it’s going to be him. It was always going to be him.

He looks at Glimmer’s face; her breath is deep and regular, her eyes closed, but he knows she isn’t asleep. She thinks she’s going to make it.

It’s a little funny.

 

 

“Cato,” Clove calls when she falls, and then again, but when he asks her to stay, she does not answer.

 

 

What he feels bad about: training his whole life for this, wanting to be a part of this, but when he was six he got into a fight with another boy at school, and when his father came to pick him up he looked at him for the first time that week and yelled a little and then calmed down and said: “At least, you’re strong. I can work with that.”, and–

Yeah, he has issues. He’s also on a show that people watch to see kids killing each other, so. He thinks they may have bigger problems.

 

 

The first time he sees Clove spar–

Well.

 

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, once. They may be in the Arena with cameras watching, they may not be.

“About what?” she growls, her voice dry; a warning.

“That we got picked together.”

There’s a flash of anger in her eyes; he likes that, because anger is easy, he knows anger, but he doesn’t know what it is that clouds her eyes after.

“I’m not,” she answers.

 

 

It’s always been _when_ , he thinks when the muttations close their jaws around his arms and his legs and not his neck. It’s always been _when_.

 


End file.
